As congress continues to waste time playing school
yard games, which I often to refer as the age old "my balls are bigger
than your", the country waits in anticipation of the dreaded sequester.
This estimated $85 billon dollar round of spending cuts is expected to take its
full affect throughout the fiscal year without much hope of a backup plan or a quick
effective replacement. In simple terms these “across-the-board cuts” are being
used to persuade and put pressure on the public to encourage or in other words force
new agreements in congress regarding issues such as new tax revenues.
Easily predicted, these massive cuts are not only
going to affect government personal employment but will hurt defense and
education budgets as well as affect the cost of air travel and jobs. But lets
be honest, it’s not going to stop there. What about advertising? What about
sales? Without a shadow of a doubt, this sequester is going to have a massive
trickle down affect. Advertisers are going to have to find new angles and ways
of persuasion to make those products we think we have to have affordable and
worth it when money starts to get tight. Prices of products are not just
magically going to become cheaper just because we dealing with a national
budget cut, in fact they will likely go up. The advertising game is going to
get a little bit harder and a lot more competitive, it’s time to gear up so some
else isn’t stealing your sales.
When times get rough and money and federal aid is a
little harder to come by, the majority of society is not looking for those high-end
luxury products or shopping at pricey stores but rather going to the affordable
second best. It’s going to be all about the next best deal. This sequester is
going to affect everyone. Although the magnitude of this trickle down affect is
still unknown, it’s time advertisers prepare themselves for the changes it will
be facing because let’s be honest, something wicked this way comes and it might
be here to stay.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323864304578320534058412860.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories
After talking about this in class last week I decided to research this topic a little bit as well. I think these massive budget cuts are going to force many advertisers to get very creative with the way they're selling their products. For example, I believe the practice of product placement in TV shows, movies and other communication mediums will sky rocket. I'm not sure of the actual price of product placement is cheaper than a commercial, however the use of a product by certain characters or shows may help to boost sales tremendously if they hit the right target audience.
ReplyDeleteI was not aware of this extreme budget cut or at least I had not focused on it as much as I probably should. After reading this blog entry I also tried to research a bit more about the topic in order to become more familiar with it. I completely agree that this budget cut will make it tougher to advertise and in general it will make it more costly. This could be considered a kind of set back for the advertising world. Even though this budget cut just seems to be negative and like it will only hurt advertisers, I feel like there is something positive to it. The budget cut could serve as a push to advertisers to create more unique advertisements. The increase in competition and in money spent could be a sort of motivation or could create an incentive to produce some great innovative advertisements.
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